3rd woman accuses Kavanaugh
Trump defends Supreme Court nominee on eve of showdown before Senate panel
WASHINGTON — On the eve of a showdown hearing, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the senators who will judge him confronted a third set of lurid allegations Wednesday accusing him of sexual misconduct as a young man.
Kavanaugh heatedly denied them all, while Democrats complained about a rush to approval and President Donald Trump said the accusations added up to no more than “a con job.”
Trump praised Kavanaugh anew at a news conference Wednesday in New York, but in answer to a question he said he could consider changing his mind on the nomination if testimony by Kavanaughaccuser
Christine Blasey Ford is convincing. He said of the allegations by her and others, “If I thought he was guilty of something like this yeah, sure.”
But Trump acknowledged that past accusations of sexual misconduct against him have influenced the way he views similar allegations against other men, including Kavanaugh.
Wading into the #MeToo moment, Trump said he views such accusations “differently” because he’s “had a lot of false charges made against me.”
“It’s happened to me many times,” Trump said, claiming he’d been accused — falsely — by “four or five women.”
More than a dozen women came forward during the 2016 campaign, claiming they were as-
saulted, groped or kissed without consent by Trump. Trump was also caught on tape in 2005 boasting of grabbing women by their genitals and kissing them without permission.
As with the allegations by two previous Kavanaugh accusers, the latest incidents are alleged to have occurred decades ago.
In a sworn declaration, Julie Swetnick, of Washington, D.C., said she witnessed Kavanaugh “consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s.”
Swetnick says Kavanaugh was present at a 1982 house party where she was gang raped. Swetnick, 55, did not accuse Kavanaugh of participating in the assault, which would have occurred at one of many parties she says they both attended when Kavanaugh was in high school.
Her attorney, Michael Avenatti, provided the declaration to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
GOP leaders indicated they were determined to have the committee vote on recommending Kavanaugh on Friday — after a dramatic Thursday hearing at which both Kavanaugh and Ford are to testify. A roll call presumably would follow next week by the full Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-49 majority. Timing is critical. Kavanaugh would be likely to cement a conservative tilt to the Supreme Court for years to come, but that could be thrown into doubt if he cannot be confirmed before November elections that might swing Senate control to the Democrats.
There are scattered hints of GOP hesitancy.
Kavanaugh supporter Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, was asked as he left a closed-door luncheon attended by Vice President Mike Pence whether GOP senators remained united behind Kavanaugh. His answer: Republicans are impressed by the judge and don’t know the accusers and “I think that goes to his advantage.” Susan Collins of Maine, a pivotal moderate who’s not announced her position, said she was taking Swetnick’s claims seriously.
Kavanaugh, 53, an appeals court judge, released a statement denying the Swetnick accusations. “This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don’t know who this is and this never happened,” he said.
Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, tweeted that about 20 committee investigators are “tracking down all allegations/leads & talking to all witnesses & gathering all evidence.”
The committee also released a two-page prepared statement from Kavanaugh for Thursday’s hearing in which he “categorically and unequivocally” denied Ford’s allegation. She has said he forced her into a room at a high school party, held her on a bed and tried removing her clothes as he muffled her mouth with his hands. Ford says she eventually escaped.
Kavanaugh’s written testimony for the committee went a bit further than the description of his youthful behavior he gave in a Fox News Channel interview Monday, when he said “people” may have drunk too much at high school parties. “I drank beer with my friends, usually on weekends. Sometimes I had too many. In retrospect, I said and did things in high school that make me cringe now,” Kavanaugh said.
He also provided the committee with calendar pages listing the activities that filled his summer of 1982 when he was 17 — the year when Ford says she believes the assault occurred. The pages mention several parties and also a beach week, but do not mention Ford, who has said she was a “friendly acquaintance” of Kavanaugh’s at the time.
Ford attorneys sent the Judiciary Committee a report on an Aug. 8 lie-detector test she took on her allegations that states her answers were “not indicative of deception.”
Swetnick made other accusations in her statement. Avenatti said Swetnick is seeking an FBI investigation.
Avenatti also represents Stormy Daniels, who alleges she was paid to keep a sexual relationship with Trump quiet.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., warned Republicans not to “bail out” on Kavanaugh. “Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it just did,” he said in a written statement. “The lawyer to porn stars has just taken this debacle to an even lower level.”
But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., said Kavanaugh should withdraw his nomination.
Also Wednesday, Ford’s lawyers said they’d given the committee sworn statements from four people who say Ford told them before Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the court this summer that she had been sexually assaulted when she was younger. According to all four, she either named Kavanaugh as the assailant or described the attacker as a “federal judge.”
In one statement, friend Keith Koegler said he wrote to Ford in a June 29 email, “I remember you telling me about him, but I don’t remember his name. Do you mind telling me so I can read about him?”
“Brett Kavanaugh,” Ford responded by email, according to Koegler, her son’s baseball coach.